Our galaxy, like you’ve never seen it before

It’s some 27,000 light years away, and shrouded by thick clouds of gas and dust. To get around the dust astronomers must observe light at longer wavelengths, principally in the infrared, that is not scattered by dust articles. With a longer wavelength that visible light, infrared light is used for a variety of purposes on Earth, including night vision.

Now two teams of astronomers using telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile have been able to get a much better look at the bulge of stars at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, enough to make a three-dimensional map of its structure.

And lo and behold, it looks like a large peanut. An artist’s concept of what our galaxy would look like from an observer outside it is below.

Artist’s impression shows how the Milky Way galaxy would look seen from almost edge on. Click to enlarge. (ESO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Kornmesser/R. Hurt)

The findings are important because computer models have predicted a peanut-shaped bulge such as this should exist due to buckling of the centermost region of the galaxy under strong gravitational forces. And now astronomers have observed it.